March 1 2011

Indoor/Outdoor Sustainable Handcrafted Tile

"Any single Encore tile is handled by artisans 18 to 21 times on its journey to your home."

Encore Ceramics is a sustainable tile manufacturer located in Oregon whose main mission is to create handcrafted tile that is beautiful along with sustainable. They employ a myriad of sustainable practices into their manufacturing process to minimize their impact on the planet. Here is a quick snapshot of some of the green practices they employ in their factory-pretty impressive!

-"All raw materials purchased by the company to leave the company only as a salable finished product". This means that every ounce of rejected tile, tile scraps, leftover glaze, etc. is reused to make new tile.

-No Floor drains. Nothing from the ceramic process goes down the drain.

-Energy efficient kilns. Each piece is designed to be fired only once to save energy.

-All company cars are hybrids

-Solar Energy. Employs one of the ten largest solar panel installations in the Norwest.

Encore tiles come in a variety of colors, sizes and shapes from traditional mosaics to contemporary stacked patterns. My favorite is the Crackle palette which has amazing depth and texture and comes in 52 beautiful shades.